


Tired

by happybeans



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Action, Comedy, Friendship, tw for knives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-14 20:54:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20854001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happybeans/pseuds/happybeans
Summary: Foggy's so tired. Why does he have to get assaulted on tonight of all nights? Good thing Daredevil's here to save the day.-----------------------------------In which Foggy manages to hold his own against three assailants until Matt Murdock swoops in with the power of friendship (and his fists).





	Tired

Foggy’s tired. Okay? And not the satisfying kind of tired that means he’s about to have a sexy 6-10-hour reunion with his mattress—no, of course not.

It’s more like that ‘my-best-friend’s-an-illegal-vigilante-with-major-guilt-issues (along with a miasma of other issues)-and-alongside-the-near-constant-anxiety-that-Murdock’s-gonna-get-his-dumb-head-caved-in-while-Daredeviling-one-of-these-days-Foggy-_also_-has-to-cope-with-the-fact-that-being-a-Hell’s-Kitchen-defense-attorney-basically-makes-him-a-free-all-you-can-eat-buffet-to-criminals. Apparently’-kind of tired. Capiche?

Thankfully, this one ended before it really had the chance to get off the ground.

Rewind.

Enter stage left: Foggy Nelson, attorney (obviously), esteemed best friend and law partner, fair and just co-boss, (unofficial) favorite son, and take-out enthusiast. Among various other admirable traits, of course.

Our darling main character is finishing his night the _right _way. He walks down the street, one hand in his pocket, the other clutching a to-go bag—inside of which, if you must know, is a very reasonable choice of shrimp pad thai. 

It’s been a good day, actually. Matty-boy’s managed not to have acquired any major injuries within the past eight days (though who’s counting, really?) and Foggy feels like they’ve really been making good progress on a new case—another bullshit eviction which, based on the sketchy evidence they’ve been dredging up, should be a snap.

So, yeah! Life is good, Jesus is real—let’s celebrate with the wondrous flavors of Thailand.

It’s late, but Foggy’s doing everything right: he walks under the streetlights and toys with the mace Matt makes him carry around in his pocket. He’s got a little skip to his step, a cheery whistle on his lips, but he does that mindfulness-thing, keeps an eye and ear on his surroundings.

To the average and normal human, all seems good in the neighborhood. That is, until three entire men stalk around the corner like lions out for the hunt.

Foggy doesn’t need to hear heartbeats or smell pancreases or whatever to know that something real is about to go down.

“Well,” Foggy says cheerfully to himself. “Time to cross the street!”

Because, really, who knows? It’s entirely possible that these kind gentlemen are just out—out for an evening stroll or something. Maybe they suddenly remembered they forgot to get their steps in at...uh...eleven-p.m. Or like—what if they were playing an enthusiastic game of charades and worked up an appetite? Perfectly feasible.

(Sadly, he’s not even fooling himself).

Foggy’s intuition is spot-on, and he doesn’t even manage to step off the curb before one particularly wide gentleman (and this is coming from Foggy, mind you) steps forward with the same swagger as a middle school cool boy, and then Foggy doesn’t have the chance to quip anymore, not even in the inner monologue, because—

Duck, Foggy!

A very masculine ‘eep!’ slips past his lips as he falls into a half-squat, right hand sliding from his pocket.

The wide assailant—Craig, how about we call him Craig—Craig’s hand whiffs through the air, only managing to partially snag the collar of Foggy’s shirt as he dodges out of the way.

Foggy stumbles backwards, barely retaining his balance even as his right hand raises up, mace gripped within, and—

Pause.

Okay. Before you see any more, please take a second to understand that pepper spray isn’t like—some second-nature thing. It takes practice to be able to all smoothly whip it out, and Foggy has thick fingers, okay? It’s more difficult than you’d think. 

Anyway, it doesn’t really matter what happened next. In the end, Foggy gets a ripe bruise on his tailbone, and Craig does eventually end up with a face full of pepper spray. So we’ll just skip ahead to that part and leave it like that.

Unpause.

“Shit fuck!” Craig swears eloquently. And relatably; that actually really hurt.

Foggy’s on the ground, and he gets the distinct feeling that that’s where he should not be.

He—well, he doesn’t want to say that he _skitters _because that’s a little mangy street cat for his tastes, but, well. 

He skitters backwards in a sort of three-legged crab walk for a few steps, mace held up quite menacingly, thank you.

“S-stay back!” he squeaks out, unfortunately sounding way more breathless than he’s comfortable with.

Craig seems like he’s out of commission for now, still swearing up a storm with his face in his hands. 

The other two, on the other hand…

Well, they don’t seem all that intimidated by Foggy’s display. They seem thoroughly pissed, actually. So that’s nice.

One of the hooligans, a short and skinny little thing, slinks forward like a hyena about to take on an elephant. It’d probably be a little funny—what is the guy, 4-foot-something?—except Hyena kid’s brought a knife to the assault party, and he isn’t even holding it Freddy Kreugar-style; he’s holding it sideways, like he actually knows how to use the thing. Clearly not his first knife rodeo.

Well, that’s fine. 

Foggy jumps up to his feet (and he can already tell he’s going to be sore tomorrow, damn it), and he stumbles over the take-out box, which—okay, yeah, it was cheap, but Foggy is poor, okay, and that was dinner. So now this shit just got personal.

“Foggy Nelson,” short-stuff says, “Ack-heugh-heugh!”Pepper spray doesn’t taste so good, apparently. Foggy can sympathize; he’s only getting a small percent of the back-splash, but his eyes burn nearly as badly as the nights before final exams.

Not that he will feel sympathy, of course. Crime doesn’t pay, bitch. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. And all that.

Shit!

The knife whiffs the air in front of him as he bounces back. Apparently hyena-kid’s not a bad aim while blind. Okay. Okay. Noted.

And because the situation isn’t bad enough already, number three seems about ready to bat, stepping forward with heavy steps in his clompy, black boots.

“Stand down,” Boots orders in a snarly, dark voice. He’s built the most reasonably of the three of them, though that doesn’t mean much; the guy looks like he tears phone books apart for breakfast. You get the point.

If anything, this experience has made Foggy pretty confident with his mace. He raises it up, feeling like a powerful badass about to end this man’s whole career. Then he sprays it, and the powerful spray travels…an inch. Then a half-inch. Then a quarter-inch.

Oh, dear God.

Foggy starts stepping backwards, slow steps with his hands raised up, letting the empty mace slip to the ground.

“Okay, fellas—”

“Shut up.”

“There’s no need to get hasty.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Let’s just handle this like gentle—eep!”

“Shut—”

In true Nelson-fashion: he trips. Backwards. Over the take-out.

Ow, his beautiful ass!

Phone Book steps up, hyena-kid behind him with his knife, and Craig still swearing behind him. And Foggy—

Well, Foggy’s panicking. He does what he can, uses what he has, just like Matt told him to.

He throws the take-out.

And it hits its mark perfectly, and Phone Book just stares, open-mouthed, and Foggy stares back, open-fucking-mouthed.

And then Daredevil drops in.

“Evening, citizen,” he says to Foggy, grin cracked across his face even as he throws a mean left hook to Phone Book's face. Yowch!

The fight is mean and dirty, and Foggy will have to fast-forward right through it because, honestly? He blanks out through most of it.

They’re quiet for a second, once the final guy, Craig, goes down, Matt—sorry, Daredevil—breathing heavy and Foggy barely breathing at all.

Then Matt tilts his head. “Shrimp?” he asks.

“I wanted pad thai,” Foggy says with a shrug.

Matt nods. His head tilts down towards the three assailants.

“Call the police,” he says. “Give your report. Then go right home.”

Foggy just nods. He wants to ask if they’ll meet up after this or if Matt’s going to keep patrolling, but one look at the trio stops him.

“Okay,” he says, just in case Matt didn’t catch the nod.

Matt nods back. “Enjoy your evening, sir,” he says, like a dork, before he dashes into the shadows.

Foggy snorts a laugh, though it’s mainly habit as opposed to actually finding it funny. Then he calls the cops, and thankfully Brett works tonight.

Brett comes and the paramedics come—to whom Foggy neglects to divulge the story of his wounded ass. Then the three stooges are rounded up, blah, blah, blah.

In the end, Foggy finally gets home, maybe an hour later, and he’s beyond tired, now. He’s _tired_. And not in the sexy 3-5-hour-nap-incoming-kind of way. Because why would it be?

He’s somehow both hungry and nauseous at the same time, and while the adrenaline left his system a while ago, the paranoia most certainly has not. He jumps at nearly every shadow in his apartment building and swears he can hear footsteps behind him.

Then he gets to his apartment, and when he turns around to hang up his coat, he actually does hear footsteps behind him.

“Foggy—”

“Fuck!”

He throws a blind punch, but thankfully Matt ducks.

Crouched low to the floor, Matt tilts his head up to him. “Strong hook,” he says with a grin. “Sorry I scared you.”

Foggy throws a hand over his face. “Christ, Matt,” he sighs.

Matt stands back up, and he pats Foggy’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he repeats. Then with a shrug: “I brought thai food?”

Foggy blinks at him. Then he grins.

“Aww, Matt!” God, that’s so sweet. “Rake it in. We’re hugging it out.”

Matt fakes a groan, not a natural hugger, but Foggy pulls him close for a moment.

Foggy considers thanking him. Considers making the moment even more heart-squishy than it is. He decides to spare Matt instead:

“They got my ass, Matt.”

“They—they what?!” Matt pulls away, laughing.

“They broke my ass!” Foggy repeats, gesturing.

Tilting his head, Matt pauses then says: “Ah, I feel it now.”

“You feel it?!”

“Go get changed,” Matt says with a grin, not answering the question—Matt, can you feel it?! Explain?!

Foggy doesn’t even know what to say to this one. “Okay,” he says, agreeing to bring it up again later.

He changes into an old pair of sweats and his first Columbia tee, honestly not able to get it out of his head the whole time. What would it mean to feel somebody else’s ass pain? Do his senses extend to pain? Can he feel somebody else’s hurt, like, physically? What?

He socks-up then walks out prepared to get his answers, but the smell of glorious shrimp pad thai stops him in his metaphorical tracks.

“Did you heat it up?” he asks Matt, though it’s obvious that he did based on the pot.

“Wanted it to stay warm,” Matt explains with a shrug and a crooked smile. “It’s not from your favorite place, but it was made by a good person.”

“Who?”

Matt scratches his head as he spoons the pad thai into two bowls. “Never got a last name, but Jamie. Sweet lady who runs Lotus Thai on 52nd. “

“Oh, I’ve been there before,” Foggy says, pulling a chair out and sitting down. Matt sets one bowl in front of him, saving one for himself then taking the seat across from Foggy. “Went there for lunch one time with Karen. You said you know the owner?”

Matt shrugs, picking up his fork. “We met once,” he says, tapping the top of his head.

It’s only now that it hits Foggy that Matt’s changed out of the Daredevil costume.

“You saved her as Daredevil?” Foggy asks, picking up his own fork and smiling—honestly with at least some pride. For all the grief Matt’s…extracurriculars…can cause, moments like this… Well, moments like this, Foggy thinks he almost gets it.

“I helped her out,” Matt says, obviously trying to brush it off. But he has a small smile, which means a definite confirmation.

“Good job, buddy,” Foggy says. “And, thanks. For tonight.”

Matt looks up at him, lips pushed together. “I was just doing my job, Foggy.”

“No,” Foggy says, setting his fork down. “It’s not your job. Thank you.”

Matt nods once, turning his head back down. “I’m just glad I was there,” he says, without lifting his head back up.

“Yeah,” Foggy says honestly. “Me, too.” There’s a pause between them and Foggy continues: “I’m pretty sure they’re related to the Johannsen eviction case.”

“I think so, too,” Matt says. “The one guy…under all the shrimp…” Foggy snorts a laugh, and Matt shares his grin. “He had that same smell as Thompson.”

“The landlord.”

“Mhm.” Matt takes a bite of a bean sprout then continues, “Pretty sure they’re related. A brother, maybe, or a cousin.”

Foggy shrugs. “I can see it.”

“I gotta get back out there later,” Matt says, eyebrows drawn together in apology. “Need to get some answers.”

“It’s okay,” Foggy says, and he actually means it. “But thank you. For being here.”

“Anytime, Foggy. I’m here for you.”

Foggy won’t end up sleeping that night. But the next day, once he’s back from work (and at a much more reasonable hour), he flops right down.

And it is the sexiest reunion imaginable.

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another little shortie fic. Not sure what's making me churn out the endings to all of these so quickly, but I won't complain. I have a multi-chapter I'm considering turning out soon. Not sure if there's even any interest, but whatevs. It'll be fun to have a bigger project out there, even if it's not completed yet. We'll see.  
Hope you enjoyed. If you read this far, please feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments. It really would make my day :)


End file.
